


love is not a victory march

by Ahigheroctave



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-12
Updated: 2011-11-12
Packaged: 2017-11-15 05:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/523597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahigheroctave/pseuds/Ahigheroctave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of the death of Cinderella.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love is not a victory march

**Author's Note:**

> Written for softly_me's The Vampire Diaries Free-for-All Comment Ficathon: Part 3. Go post more prompts, write stories for me to devour! This is very dark, as all of my VD fic tends to be. Enter at your own risk.

Once upon a time, there was beautiful princess in a faraway kingdom called Bulgaria. Her fall from grace is not in the history books, it is the best kept secret of a wealthy family who abandoned their broken daughter. This young woman then took a secret oath, one that was hers alone to hold: She would protect herself before all else, and hell would hath it's fury on anyone who tried to stop her. So she drank from a darker tinted Fountain of Youth and ran like the wind to get away from the consequences.

Five-hundred and eighteen years later, a beautiful baby is born to the first of families to inhabit a new kingdom. Unbeknownst to her kind, gentle step parents there is a curse that befalls this beautiful brown-eyed child cradled in their arms. Her destiny is to be a perfect copy of a monster that has been ravaging the earth, she is the key to making a hideous hybrid species that long to feed on all the innocent, gangly humans that are walking around in a world that is still shiny and new to them. Through the kindness of wonderful stepfather and the warmth of her stepmother's lullabies in her ears, the child is given a gift. She is taught that love and loyalty and genuine affection for others are the most important things in the world, not self-preservation and reputation.

And so she survives the tragedy of their untimely drowning, by burying her love in a man who is like no-one else. And packing her feelings for his brother into a little room inside her spacious heart that is not allowed to be opened. The problem is she doesn't hold the key.

And so begins three years of choices that define who Elena Petrova Gilbert is. Not all of them are made with the wit and cunning of her predecessor, but all of them are made with the care and courage she was taught. She accepts that she was born dark, but that does not mean she will not fight for the light.

And the princess will gain an army through it: Of a dark horse brother who fights by her side, of a beam of sunlight who will pull herself out of the darkness she was handed and flourish against all odds, of a silent little witch who will do anything that is necessary to protect her friends, of a snarling wolf who doth protest too much, of a childhood crush who somehow became a man, and of the two who she loves best but also worst.

They will fight to the death for her, but also, occasionally, life will win out.

On the final day, there is no happy ending. She takes a stake to her own heart for the greater good, for the friends who have always deserved better and for the men who all this time have been chained by their devotion. The thing about Elena Gilbert is: she knows she isn't living a fairy tale. There are no knights in shining armor, not all witches are bad, and not all step-mothers are wicked.

She is just another girl who died too young fighting the thin line between good and evil.


End file.
